Police being called too quick on Taser's trigger

Three cases have brought federal suits in Baytown

ROMA KHANNA, Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Published 6:30 am, Sunday, January 2, 2005

Feeling the auras of an oncoming epileptic seizure, Robert Stanley called for help.

But it overcame him before the ambulance arrived, and Stanley, 30, was so disoriented that he fled from paramedics. With some difficulty, they were able to put him on a gurney, strap his lower body down and load him into an ambulance.

Baytown police, however, say Stanley was still unmanageable, so officer Edgar Elizondo had to subdue him with a 50,000-volt shot from a Taser. Though he suffered no lingering injuries in the July 19, 2003, incident, Stanley is now suing Elizondo and the department for excessive use of force — the third such federal lawsuit filed against Baytown over the use of Tasers.

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"He was running away from people but never acted aggressively," said Matt Freeman, Stanley's lawyer. "Any threat of force ended when he decided to get into the ambulance. This simply was excessive."

When it comes to Taser use, defining "excessive" is problematic for Harris County law enforcement agencies. In 2004, several of them began issuing Tasers to hundreds of officers and training them in their use, but issuing few written restrictions, leaving the decision on whether to use one almost entirely up to the officer.

"There is a philosophy to use a Taser anytime you would have to put your hands on a suspect," said Assistant District Attorney Tommy LaFon, who prosecuted another Baytown officer on a misdemeanor assault charge involving Taser use. "I am not sure the public is ready to give the police that kind of authority. It seems we want them to use more discretion."

The local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union says Tasers should only be used as a last resort to avoid lethal force. In other jurisdictions across the country, officers have been instructed to avoid using a Taser on the very young or very old, the handicapped, and people who already have been brought under control.

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In the two other Baytown incidents, officers zapped a woman wearing a restrictive leg brace at least five times and shocked a 59-year-old woman who had called police to check on someone else's welfare, according to court records. The latter incident led to a rare indictment of the officer, who claimed the woman had threatened him with a brick. He was later acquitted.

David Klinger, a former police officer and now a professor at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where he studies use-of-force issues, said agencies must be clear on the proper use of a Taser and when it is preferable to a baton, pepper spray or other weapon, including a firearm. But he said that will only come with time.

"Anytime you have a new technology, it takes a little time to shake out as to when and how best to use it," he said. "When you begin to talk about sending 50,000 volts of electricity through a person's body, you come to a moral question, because this is not just going to cause a little pain.

"Even if they are not killing people, this is not a completely benign thing."

Policies and training

None of the local agencies that have recently bought Tasers, including the Houston and Pasadena police departments and the Harris County Sheriff's Department, has a written policy barring officers from using Tasers in a situation involving a minor or elderly person.

"I cannot conceive of a situation where it is appropriate at either end of the age spectrum," Klinger said.

Maj. Mike Smith, who oversees sheriff's patrol deputies, said he couldn't envision using a Taser on a very young or very old person himself, but that as a general policy, "I am not going to say absolutely not."

All agencies that issue Tasers provide officers scenario-based training and teach them to avoid certain areas of the body, including the face and genitals.

"It is another intermediate weapon, just like a baton or pepper spray," said officer Jim Conley, a trainer at HPD's academy who has taught the use of Tasers since the department first acquired them in the early 1980s.

"We will not deploy a Taser if a man has a firearm ... and we tell them not to use it on someone who is not doing anything, but in other situations the officer has to use their discretion."

Number of shocks

That discretion includes the number of times someone can be shocked.

Pasadena Assistant Chief Larry Rahr said people rarely need to be stunned several times: "We are talking about people who are ready to do combat with anything or anybody, and one five-second blast and they are compliant."

A Baytown officer gave at least five shocks to Teresa Sandra Constant on Jan. 25, 2002, after she called police to report that someone was breaking into her trailer. Police say she was delusional.

"She was calling to direct officers' attention to people that the officers could not see," said Lt. David Alford, who oversees internal investigation for BPD.

Constant's lawyer, Freeman, said she wore a leg brace that restricted her movement, used crutches and posed no threat.

But Alford said she brandished a piece of plastic broken off a car's bug shield and "lunged toward officers."

Police say Constant, 41, was stunned five times, including once in each armpit and twice in the groin, but she says it was more.

"That is a significant and inappropriate number of times," Freeman said. "She has burn marks."

'Questionable at best'

In the second incident in July 2003,
Naomi Autin
, 59, called police after getting no response to knocks on the door of her brother's house. The officer who responded claimed Autin was threatening him with a brick she had been using to beat on the door, so he shocked her.

Klinger said the officer was far too aggressive.

"It doesn't make a whole lot of sense on the face of it," he said. "If I have a 59-year-old woman saying 'I am going to bash your head in,' I am probably going to be able to resolve that by talking to her."

After the initial shock, the officer said he tried to handcuff Autin, but she resisted and he stunned her a second time.

"The first one was questionable at best, and the second one was unacceptable," said LaFon, the assistant district attorney. "You are never going to convince me that you had this 59-year-old woman with medical conditions and you couldn't put her in handcuffs without Tasing her."

Alford said officers' actions in all three incidents were justified: "I would be leading the charge if an officer misused a Taser and put it in jeopardy. But these officers were correct."

Taser rules revised

Though he said the department's policies and enforcement had been sufficient, BPD tightened its policy on Taser use within weeks of the incident involving Stanley. The new policy added steps to be followed after a Taser use and added language cautioning officers to use them "with the same degree of care and discretion as a firearm."

"The initial training that Baytown put into place was very deficient, and they have had to increase the number of hours since," Freeman said. "If other police departments are not training officers about the appropriate level of use, there are going to be a lot more incidents like these."